Visitors...

Have you ever heard of a spring-loaded needle? Well, my friends do not go around asking to be stuck by these things. They are terrible creations with awful consequences. See Below

So I'm in the process of learning how to handle needles and stick people and change tubes for samples, right? Cause I'm headed off to nursing school in florida in a few days, and my lovely co-workers are teaching me the ropes of this phlebotomy stuff. Well, the blood center received these new trial vacutainers needles(which are used for popping in tubes for blood samples) and they are, no joke, spring-loaded needle. Everything's great if you go into the vein very carefully and don't have to adjust your stick in any kind of manner. If you move your hand even slightly to change out tubes...BEWARE!!!!!!!! Seriously, because before you even realize it your spring-loaded needle will spring back into the vacutainer and leave a gushing vein with no pressure on it.

You see, right after you remove a needle from a persons arm, you must quicker apply a small amount of pressure onto the injection site with gauze in order to prevent excess bleeding and a resulting hematoma (fancy word for bruise).

Well, these new-fangled spring-loaded needle all of a sudden can decide to spring out of the vein and into to the vacutainer, leaving a person there in the chair, bleeding excessively because you don't realize that your needle, which was covered with gauze, has leapt away. and because you don't realize this fact, you also don't think to remove the turnicet as fast as you can, which results in blood oozing from this poor person vein as fast as lightening. They're supposed to be for safety, but I think more along the lines of SCARY!!!

So in effect, these crappy vacutainer are a bad idea all around and they make yet another bloody mess for the trainee. But my co-workers, of course, get a great kick out of it and taunt me for days on end!